Abstract

Childhood cancer treatment can be extremely aggressive and has been found to be more distressing and painful than the disease itself. This distress is a direct response to the symptoms caused by the side effects of treatment such as nausea, vomiting, retching, fatigue, anorexia, pain, stress, mood disturbances, and sleep alterations. Some children appear to adapt and cope well, whereas others are particularly susceptible to the physical intensity of the treatment symptoms and show physical, emotional, and behavioral manifestations of marked symptom distress. The ability to identify the symptom distress vulnerable child may be an important aspect of childhood cancer treatment and survival and an ultimate goal in prevention of long-term problems. A longitudinal, case study design was used to examine the day-to-day symptom experience of 3 children, aged 7, 12, and 16 years, throughout the first 3 months of chemotherapeutic treatment to elucidate patterns of symptom distress that may emerge in response to the treatment. The symptom patterns tracked and studied were (a) pain; (b) stress; (c) sleep alterations; (d) fatigue; (e) nausea, vomiting, and retching; (f) anxiety; and (g) perception of symptom experience. The overall research question addressed was: What is the profile of symptomatic response in children produced as a result of the side effects of chemotherapeutic treatment for cancer?

Description

This dissertation has also been disseminated through the ProQuest Dissertations and Theses database. Dissertation/thesis number: 9943206; ProQuest document ID: 304516252. The author still retains copyright.

Author Details

Sharron Lee Docherty, PhD, RN

Sigma Membership

Beta Epsilon

Type

Dissertation

Format Type

Text-based Document

Study Design/Type

Case Study/Series

Research Approach

Mixed/Multi Method Research

Keywords:

Patient Experience, Symptom Distress in Children, Children with Cancer

Advisor

Margarete Sandelowski

Degree

PhD

Degree Grantor

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Degree Year

1999

Rights Holder

All rights reserved by the author(s) and/or publisher(s) listed in this item record unless relinquished in whole or part by a rights notation or a Creative Commons License present in this item record.

All permission requests should be directed accordingly and not to the Sigma Repository.

All submitting authors or publishers have affirmed that when using material in their work where they do not own copyright, they have obtained permission of the copyright holder prior to submission and the rights holder has been acknowledged as necessary.

Review Type

None: Degree-based Submission

Acquisition

Proxy-submission

Date of Issue

2019-09-18

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